Kajeet Cell Phone for Kids

Is the new Kajeet cell phone right for your children?

If you’ve got a any 8-12 year-olds in your family, and have thought about providing them with a cell phone, then you’ve got a new option available to you. This new cell phone service is designed to be easy to use and manage for parents as well as their children. It’s advertised not only as a cell phone, but also as a way of teaching your children to manage money. The scenario is that you give them an allowance in their Kajeet “wallet” of, let’s say, $20, and they can use that either for making calls or downloading ringtones or games. Your children then have to learn to balance those different desires within their allowance. As a parent you decide to fund their wallet. You can exempt certain calls (such as calls to you) from their wallet. These calls then get charged to you.

Coverage

Kajeet is a Sprint-based virtual mobile provider. Meaning their network is leased from Sprint. So Kajeet's coverage is based accordingly. Coverage basically looks good. The map shows good coverage in population centers and along highways (which are also population centers.) You need to check first, of course.

Safety

Here's some safety-related information about Kajeet. They, of course, comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA). In addition:

You can always call 911 even if your Kajeet account has no money or if your number has been deactivated.
Also, all 900 and 976 telephone numbers are blocked.
All ringtones have been "content approved".

I would like to see them introduce a feature for the younger kids where the phone numbers that can be called and that can call them have to be approved by the parents. (Update: This feature seems to be there now.)

Rates

There is a daily access fee of 35 cents charged everyday. This works out to a little over $10 per month and about $127 per year. As a parent you can arrange to have the access charge billed to your account rather than your child’s.

Calls cost 10 cents per minute. Instant messages 5 cents per minute, and picture messages 25 cents per minute. According to Kajeet, these minutes don’t expire, but, of course, that’s a misleading statement, because there is a daily access charge that’s always eating away at that balance. But, as I just mentioned, you can have the access charge billed to you, and you may want to do that, otherwise, you have the situation where the child has to "use it or lose it".

You can suspend your kajeet account for a limited amount of time such as when you go on vacation. This is at their discretion, so you probably can do this a couple of times a year.

All in all, Kajeet may not be cheaper than adding your child to your current standard (not prepaid) cell phone plan. In that case you're paying a little more for the extra care they have taken to design the phone for the "tween-agers".

Setting up the service

Kajeet has a couple of neat features to configure and monitor how your child uses the phone.

There is a Time Management setting, where you can set the days and times of the day when your child can use the phone.

There is a Contact Management setting that lets you make sure that they can always contact YOU no matter how the Time Management is set up. Through Contact Management you also set up the parent and child wallets.

Feature Management let you choose which features are activated on the phone. For example, you can prevent it being used for downloading either ringtones or games. Depending on how mature your kids are, you can gradually lift these restrictions.

Kajeet Wallets

This prepaid cell phone plan is based on the idea of "wallets". -- child wallets and parent wallets. You transfer money from your wallet to your child’s wallet. You can do this at anytime. Don’t know if you can take away money as well

Phones

Kajeet has a limited but good-looking assortment of phones.

LG LX-150 for $49.99

The LG LX-150 is a blue-tooth capable flip phone (personally I wouldn’t get my children one of the Bluetooth earpieces. Has speakerphone capability.

LG 225 for $69.99

Similar to the LX-150, but adds a very basic camera (0.3 megapixel). The camera, of course will be popular with the kids. You have to decide if they will use it wisely.

Nokia 6165i for $69.99

This flip phone features a 1.0 megapixel camera as well as a video camcorder function. Seems like a better deal than the LG 225. The only drawback is a protruding antenna.

Samsung m300 $79.99

The Kajeet Samsung m300 is now also available from Target.

Sanyo Katana $99.99

The most stylish phone of the lot. It doesn’t have the camcorder feature, but does look nicer.

This child seems to like his. (His comments about Sprint are not consistent, but he does a fantastic job overall with his review):

(Pink) Sanyo Katana II 99.99

Same price as the Katana I, with a few new features.

Games and Ringtones

You can download as assortment of games and ringtone for a Kajeet cell phone. Kajeet tells you how much it’s going to cost before you download it. Another way for showing that they’re not just trying to fleece you. Any download game or ringtone can be stored at their end in what’s called “The Vault”. So if your child is running out of storage on the phone, they can move some games or ringtones to “The Vault” and download them later without charge. As mentioned above, all ringtones are "content approved".

Dudeworld

Dudeworld is an attempt to market these downloads, ringtones, etc. to the kids. The "Dudes" are a set of half-baby blob-like cartoon characters. Each character has their favorites activities, food and ringtones. For example, one character's favorite "wallpaper" for his phone matches his skateboard.

This appeal to being cool by downloading the right ringtones, wallpapers etc., is not really in line with Kajeet's message about teaching children how to manage their phones and money responsibly.

Google Maps

There is currently just one standard "app" available for your Kajeet phone, but it's a useful one.

For compatible Kajeet phones, you can use Google Maps to find out where you need to go and how to get there.

Where to get them

The phones are available at Best Buy or at Limited Too stores and their websites. You can also get them directly through Kajeet's website website.

Recycling your old phones

Okay, so you've decided to switch your whole family over to Kajeet!

Kajeet has set up a website for recycling your old cell phone. You enter your information at: http://kajeetrecycles.com and print out a mailing label as well as an IRS form documenting your donation. They’re a little too vague for my purposes about just whom they’re sending the phones – they’re sent somewhere in Florida. You get a confirmation email from someone with a someone@onlinedonationcenter.com email address.

Anyway, there are other options for donating your old cell phone such as www.collectivegood.com or even start up your own collection (www.wirelessrecycling.com).

Summary

All in all, Kajeet seems to be a pretty well thought-out service, and worth a look if you’re considering getting a cell phone for your 8-12 year-old children.

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